The Ventura County District Attorney's Office cited far fewer Ventura County students for missing class during the past school year than in the year before.

In the 2016-17 school year, the office issued 301 citations for truancy violations.

That's down from the 1,375 parents and students cited for truancy violations in 2015-16.

A year earlier, more than 1,400 were called into court, according to county records.

But the change doesn't necessarily mean fewer kids missed classes. Instead, the drop reflects reforms to a system that had been criticized as too punitive.

"The whole point of this program is to help kids stay in school and impress upon the kids and their families the importance of education," said Stacy Ratner, whose unit at the DA's Office oversees truancies.

Giving them a citation doesn't necessarily solve the problem, she said.

"Some of the kids do respond to that, and that's still a very viable option for us," Ratner said recently. "But we really thought it was important to go deeper into outreach to see if there were other services that could be provided."

In 2016, attorneys with the Ventura County Public Defender’s Office, California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard and the DA's Office raised concerns about the local system.

A committee was set up to bring representatives from school districts, public agencies and other local groups to the table. Together, they hashed out ways to get to the reasons kids were missing school and figure out how to provide families help.

Ratner also directed her attorneys not to file cases until after a Student Attendance Review Board, or SARB, hearing and a follow-up review were held.

State law passed in the 1970s first allowed districts to create the SARBs as a way to help students with attendance or behavior problems.

After three unexcused absences, a student is considered truant. Two more and the family may be referred to a SARB.

"The District Attorney's Office made clear to the schools that the practice of citing students for truancy was going to be changed to include citations only after districts had engaged in more than one SARB meeting," said Roger Rice, deputy superintendent of the Ventura County Office of Education.

Last year, that's what happened.

"We sent every kid for review. That wasn't consistently done before," Ratner said. Some were brought back for multiple reviews.

"What we're really trying to do is solve their problem, or help them solve their problem," she said. "As expected, it resulted in a lot fewer citations."

It's too soon to say whether the interventions will lead to fewer chronic truancy problems.

"We're not going to know — I don't think for a couple of years — the overall impact of these changes," Ratner said. "Our expectation is that it's going to result in better attendance rates across the board. But we won't know that initially."

Rice said the reforms weren't put in place solely to improve attendance.

Officials were trying to make that happen, he said, but they also wanted to funnel fewer kids into the juvenile justice system.